Understanding the sasCommunity.org Terms of Use

"Membership is limited to individuals using, planning to use or involved with SAS software or services from SAS Institute and its affiliates,..." and

"Content posted on sasCommunity.org must be related to software and services provided by SAS Institute Inc., its business divisions, and its affiliates. Use of a resource on this Website to advertise for goods, services, or employment opportunities is prohibited where such postings are unrelated or otherwise inappropriate to the topic of such resource. "

Interpretation

Membership of sasCommunity.org

Membership of the sasCommunity.org wiki website is conditional. The people who join the sasCommunity.org wiki website should also use SAS.

Unlike other collaborative writing projects such as Wikipedia, the sasCommunity.org wiki website is not open to anyone and everyone. That is one reason why you have to register for a user account before you can contribute.

Contributors to sasCommunity.org wiki website should be able to demonstrate that they have some form of involvement or association with SAS software or associated services provided by the SAS Institute. This usually can be told from the content that is contributed. It follows that if a user does not contribute content that is related to SAS then they may not be entitle to membership of the sasCommunity.org wiki website.

Content posted on sasCommunity.org

Contributions to the sasCommunity.org wiki website should be related to SAS in some way, shape or form.

The sasCommunity.org Terms of Use prohibit anyone using sasCommunity.org wiki website to advertise or promote goods, services or employment opportunities that have nothing to do with SAS.

Penalty for breaches or misconduct

The sasCommunity.org Terms of Use allow for removal of any User’s content if that User's conduct is found to be inconsistent with these Terms of Use. The User's account can also be terminated.

If you discover a wiki page that you think is inappropriate, you can propose it for removal. Simply edit the page and insert the following text at the start of the text in the editing area:

[[Category:Remove]]

This will list the page in the Remove category. Periodically, an administrator will look at the pages in this category and remove them from the wiki.

Objecting to removal proposal

Anyone can object to a removal proposal. Any user can comment on the discussion/talk tab of the page proposed for removal in order to provide details as to why the page should not be removed.

Removing inappropriate text from pages

If you discover that part of a wiki page contains some text that you think is inappropriate, you can edit the page and remove the inappropriate text. However, you should be very sure that the text is inappropriate and that nobody will object to your edit. If you have any doubts, or think that someone might object, discuss your editing proposal, first, by using the discussion page for the article concerned. Often there can be very good reasons for keeping content that would appear doubtful at first glance.

Recognising inappropriate content

Inappropriate content can be difficult to recognise sometimes. However, most inappropriate content has some distinctive features.

External links to another website - The reason most people post inappropriate content is to promote that website in search engine listings. This is known as Search Engine Optimisation or SEO.

Off topic content - The content is usually totally off topic. It is usually impossible to see how the content relates to SAS.

Content reads like a commercial - If you were to read the content out loud it will often sound like a radio or TV commercial. That is because the text is written by people who are wanting to sell something.

Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors - The content may contain spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. This is often because the people writing the content are not native English speakers.

Copyright infringements - If you search for the inappropriate content text using a popular search engine you may find the same or similar content on other websites. This fact alone may be justification for removal because there may be a breach of copyright of one of those other websites.

Posted content does not use wiki markup text - You may find that the posted content does not use wiki markup text or if it does, it is not used appropriately. For example, a heading is simply bolded text instead of having a heading markup. Or a website is mentioned in the text but is not given a link, even though there is a deep link to a page on the same website.

Inappropriate page names - The page name doesn't follow the usual page naming conventions or is a user page that is similar to the website being promoted. Because search engines rank URL links that contain a search terms higher than other pages, SEO operatives try to get search terms into page names. That usually means they have to use a specific page name or have a user page that is similar to their website or a related search term.

No wiki links - Usually there are no wiki links from the inappropriate content to other wiki pages. If content can be linked to other wiki pages then it should contain wiki links. This usually cannot be done with inappropriate content. Also, because the inappropriate content is generally off topic it is usually impossible to meaningfully link to the page from any other wiki page. If there are links to the page then you can probably replace the inappropriate content with something that is far more appropriate, as the inappropriate content is likely to be graffiti or vandalism.

The user's behaviour can also indicate the content is inappropriate.

Repeated posting of the same or similar content - You may also find the same user posts the same, or similar, text onto multiple different pages, or repeats posts the same, or similar, text after the previous effort was removed or edited out of a page.

No engagement in discussions - Users who post inappropriate content rarely, if ever, engage in discussing their posting activities. They may simply ignore your discussion requests, and add content regardless of any attempts at discussion. Or they may overwrite any changes that have been made to the content they previously posted in an attempt to promote discussion. They don't, or won't, respond to e-mails or talk page messages asking them to stop posting.

Ignoring policy - Users who post inappropriate content usually ignore any wiki policy about how to present content, or how to use particular types of pages.

Multiple user accounts - A user may create multiple user accounts to post the same or similar content.

Slow reaction time - Users who post inappropriate content rarely react promptly to any changes that other users make to any inappropriate content that has been posted. This is usually because they are too busy posting inappropriate content somewhere else.

Dealing with inappropriate content

Often inappropriate content can be proposed for removal. However, it is sometimes better to modify the inappropriate content as well. If its reasonably clear that the prime purpose of the content is to promote a website or website page, you can derail the Search Engine Optimisation by redirecting the website links and likely search terms to somewhere else. A good page to use is the Terms of Use page. Simply enclose the search term or URL link in a wiki link that points to the Terms of Use page as follows:

[[sasCommunity:Terms of Use|URL or search term text]]

This means that any human can still read the term or URL but if a search engine reads the page it associates the URL or search term with the sasCommunity:Terms of Use page. This contaminates the search results and means the inappropriate content does not contribute to the page ranking of the target website.

Example template of message text

The following explanatory text can be pasted into the top or beginning of the editing area if editing a page containing inappropriate content.

[[Category:Remove]]:''This page is proposed for [[:Category:Remove|removal]] because the [[sasCommunity:Inappropriate content|content appears inappropriate]] and indicates the contributor is in breach of the [[sasCommunity:Terms of Use|sasCommunity.org Terms of use]]. Please read and understand the [[sasCommunity:Terms of Use|sasCommunity.org Terms of use]] before making another edit to this, or any other, page. If you disagree with the proposal, please explain your reasons on the discussion page. - ~~~~

----

==Content proposed for removal==

The purpose of this text is to provide an explanation to both the original author and other readers to explain why the page is proposed for removal, give links to relevant pages, advise the author and others of how to proceed, gives a date, time and user name of the proposer as well as tagging the page for removal.